John Gage's Greatest Hits
by ardavenport
Summary: A rescue and a victim in the midst of a larger crisis cause Johnny to recall the times when he has been the victim.
1. Chapter 1

**JOHN GAGE'S GREATEST HITS**

by ardavenport

**

* * *

- - - Part 1**

The door clicked open. A soft sound, but John instantly woke from his doze.

Light intruded on the darkened room. Unmoving, he opened his eyes. There was motion, a dark figure coming in from the light outside. A flash of light on a white lab coat. Quiet footsteps on the carpeted floor.

He was in Rampart.

John tensed. What happened?

The desk light flicked on. Papers riffled. John turned his head. Roy was asleep under a hospital blanket on the cot next to him.

Oh.

John closed his eyes.

He was in Rampart. But he was not IN Rampart.

What a day.

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The alarm toned for Station Fifty-One just after 0400. A fire at the junkyard. But the report of a man injured did not prove true. It had been a cold night and the transients who had set the fire for warmth had fled. If any had been injured, they had not stayed to get help._

_It wasn't a big fire, but there was a lot of trash and tires and plastic and things that could smolder for a long time and it kept Station Fifty-One and Station Eighty-Five busy overhauling the mess for a couple of hours before the Captains were satisfied it was out. They left with someone from headquarters talking to the irate owner of the junkyard about fire codes. It was past sunrise by the time the engine and squad got back to Station Fifty-One._

_There was no point in going back to bed; it was past morning call. So, Captain Stanley started a pot of coffee while his unshaven men slouched in the chairs around the kitchen table. They were all still in their boots, canvas pants, suspenders and white undershirts. Johnny talked about going out to get donuts before B-shift came in. But Roy did not want to get up and if they were to make a donut run they would have to go together in the squad in case they got another call before the end of their shift._

_Rrrrrrrrr-rrrrrruuuurrrrrrrrr!_

_The weariness drained from everyone's expression. The empty coffee cups on the counter rattled._

_RRRRRRRrrrrrUUUuurrruuuu-RRRrrruuuUUUURRRR-RrrrrrrrrUUUUurrrrrRRRRR! !_

_Stanley pushed his chair back so fast it tipped over backwards behind him. "Everyone down!"_

_RRRRRR-RRrrrrrrrrUUUUUURRRRR! ! !_

_They all dove under the table. The room trembled around them._

_-Rrrrr-! !_

_On hands and knees among the table legs, they all looked upward as if the bottom of the tabletop had a clue about what would happen next._

_Rrrrrrrr-rrruuuuurrrrr-rrrrr-rrrruuurrrrRRR-Rrrrrruuurrrr!_

_"Well, that wasn't so bad." Kelly started to back out._

_"Wait!" The Captain's order stopped him._

_-RRRRRUUUUUURRRRRRRR-RUUUURRR! ! ! ! !_

_They all ducked their heads down. Dishes crashed and shattered on the floor that rolled under them. Everything around them shifted._

_RRRRRRR-RRRUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRUURRR-RRRRRUUUURRRRRR! ! ! ! ! !_

_The table bounced, the two halves separating. Roy, Marco and Mike grabbed table legs that struggled to get away from them._

_RRRRRRrrrrrrrrruuuuuuuRRRR-RRRrrrrrrrrrruuuuuuuuuuuurrrr-rrrrr-rrrruuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrr! !_

_The room stabilized, the floor becoming solid again._

_Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-rrrrrrrrruuuuurrr-rrrrrrrrrruuuuurrrrrrrr-rrrrrrrrrrrrrr!_

_Silence._

_The firemen watched Stanley who listened carefully, eyes upward._

_"Okay."_

_They all backed out from under the table._

_The overhead lights had gone off, but the room's wide windows let everyone clearly see the damage. The cupboards had popped open and broken dishes and glasses littered the counter, floor and sink. Everything else in the room was a askew, the sofa no longer against the wall, the bulletin boards crooked, papers and wreckage on the floor. The TV set half-perched on the shelf by the far wall. But otherwise, the station looked intact. Kelly clicked the light switch and stated the obvious._

_"Power's out, Cap."_

_Stanley clapped his hands together. "Right. I'll call headquarters and find out what's going on. Kelly, you and Lopez crank the bay doors open, front and back. Stoker, check the outside of the building, and look for smoke from any of the buildings around here, especially that refinery across the street. Gage, get on the biophone to Rampart. DeSoto, call your wife, then join Mike outside."_

_Marco paused on his way out with Chet. "Uh, Cap?"_

_"Married men first. You can all call your families after we secure the station. Now move!"_

_They ran._

_As Johnny opened the squad compartment, he wondered if the phones were working. But he could hear Stanley's voice in his office, so at least that line was live. He hefted the biophone case onto the hood of the squad. They had charged it the night before and hadn't needed it for their last run, so the battery was good. He attached the aerial._

_"Rampart this is Squad Fifty-One, how do you read?"_

_Head bent over the reciever, he waited._

_"Rampart this is Squad Fifty-One, how do you read?"_

_A male voice answered. "Fifty-One, this is Rampart."_

_"Rampart, we've had an earthquake here at the station. What is your status?"_

_"Same here. We're still assessing our situation, but we don't seem to have any significant structural damage. I think you should count on a lot of radio traffic for the next few days."_

_"Ten-Four, Rampart. Station Fifty-One out."_

_Light spilled into the apparatus bay as the metal garage doors jerkily rose, the chains pulled by Chet and Marco. Johnny stowed the biophone and went to Stanley's office to report. The Captain agreed that things would be busy._

_"Headquarters wasn't hit too bad. We're supposed to sit tight here until they call." They left the office and went to help Chet and Marco with the rear doors. Marco asked Stanley how his wife was. She was fine, the house was fine, except for no power and a shattered cabinet of figurines and china._

_Roy and Mike jogged around the rear corner from the driveway._

_"Station looks good, Cap." Mike pointed toward the front. "Don't see any smoke either."_

_Stanley nodded. "How's your family, Roy?"_

_"The earthquake got'em out of bed; the kids are crying, but it didn't look like there was much broken. And they still have power."_

_Chet lifted his hands. "Like I said, guess it wasn't still bad."_

_"Power's still out. Headquarters wants us on standby until they call on the office line. Everyone inside and call your families while you can."_

_Marco and Chet raced to the phone with the others following._

_Johnny let Mike go before him since his aunt lived north of the county and very likely hadn't been affected by the earthquake. Everyone else was out of state; she would call them for him. While Marco spoke rapid-fire Spanish on the phone, he went to get a broom and trash can to start on the wreckage in the kitchen. How bad had the earthquake been? It had been scary enough, but Station Fifty-One was relatively new and built with earthquakes in mind. There were a lot of old brick buildings in their area. The big metal trash can banged on the floor and he put the broom aside to pick out a few unbroken coffee cups from the mess._

_"John!" Mike held up the receiver. He put the cups aside and handed off the broom to Chet. But after he dialed the phone kept ringing with no answer. Looking at his watch, Johnny knew his aunt wouldn't be out of bed this early yet._

_"Heads up!" Stanley came into the dayroom. "We've got a collapsed building at a construction site on Fremont. Let's go!"_

_Johnny reluctantly hung up and ran for the squad._

_In the driver's seat, Roy handed him a piece of paper with the address on it. Less than a mile from the station. Roy started the engine and the squad moved out into the morning light, siren blaring, Mike driving the engine right behind._

_When they drove up, Johnny saw that it wasn't exactly a construction site. It was a destruction site for a wooden two-story building that was being torn down. A man in a yellow hard hat ran out to meet them._

_"One of my men's trapped in the basement! We just started work when it happened!"_

_Captain Stanley climbed down from the cab of the engine. "What happened to him?"_

_"He fell right through the floor when the earthquake hit."_

_"Is he conscious? Can he talk?" In turnout coat and helmet, Johnny came up to them with Roy._

_The square-jawed man in the hard hat turned to him. "Yeah. But he says he's hurt and he can't move. There's only a few of us here to salvage the woodwork from this place before they tear it down next week." He jabbed a thumb at two other men in jeans, jackets and hard hats. "And two of them have already left to go check on their families."_

_Roy frowned. "Could be a back injury."_

_Stanley agreed. "Yeah. Can you show us where it is?"_

_The foreman, his name was Floyd Hartman, took them inside. It was stripped down to wood frame, old-fashioned plaster walls and naked wiring. The building seemed to have been a nightclub or bar with a large open area. They cautiously approached the ragged edge of the hole by a wall. The remaining floorboards creaked under their boots._

_Hartman called out. "Sid! I got the Fire Department to help get you out!"_

_Johnny called out. "Sid! Sid, how bad are you hurt? Can you move at all?"_

_The voice from below sounded strong but strained. "I can move. But I fell on something. I'm pinned down here. I won't be able to get up on my own."_

_They couldn't safely get close enough to the edge for even Hartman's flashlight beam to see down into the darkness to Sid. Stanley squinted around at the darkened space, light glaring in from a few small windows empty of glass. "Are there any stairs down there?"_

_"We already took'em down; we were finished down there. But there's a trap door and a ladder. This place used to have a speakeasy down there during prohibition. But part of a wall fell in and the three of us couldn't move it."_

_Stanley called out that help was coming._

_Hard hat pointed down as he picked his way past broken boards and a sawhorse to a rear corridor, Hartman complained as much to himself as to them. "I can't blame Stan and Greg for wanting to go help their families first. But I wonder if they would have run off so fast if it was anyone but Sid down there. As long as any man shows up on time and does a hard day's work, he's just as much a part of my crew as the next guy. I don't care how long a man's hair is."_

_Johnny ignored the odd glare that Hartman gave him. They could climb down the ladder and this end of the building felt a lot more stable, but they didn't get very far before Hartman's flashlight showed them the collapsed wall._

_Looking up, Stanley sized up the obstruction. "Okay, this looks like our best bet. This isn't a load bearing wall so we should be able to cut through it." They went back up to get the equipment, K-12 saw, pry bars, axes. Hartman and his men helped clear the wreckage as they cut through it. Under any other conditions Captain Stanley would never have permitted civilians in such a dangerous area, but the rules were different for an earthquake. They couldn't expect help from another engine. Mike Stoker had been monitoring the radio. All shifts were being called in; there was more damage south of them, a couple of older collapsed buildings, gas fires, road damage and traffic accidents._

_There was a large dusty open space beyond the collapsed wall._

_Hartman called out first. "Sid!"_

_"Here!" The voice came from behind a barrier of fallen timbers, wall fragments and boards. They attacked that._

_Johnny pried away a last board that finally let them see the victim in the light from the hole above. He had fallen on his back on a raised platform._

_"Sid, are you still with us?"_

_"I am here."_

_His voice was remarkably strong considering his condition. A bloody rod protruded from one thigh._

_The others helped clear a path before Stanley ordered the others out._

_"All right I don't want any more people down here that don't have to be in case of aftershocks!" They reluctantly left, Hartman voicing his support for his injured workman while Roy and Johnny climbed to him._

_"How're you doing?" Roy put down the drug box and the flashlight. Light came in from above through the open hole. Johnny opened the trauma box. They didn't think they would get any reception on the biophone below ground, so Captain Stanley stood by with it up above._

_"I don't think I'm bleeding too badly. I don't think I would have survived this long if I were." Sid did not move at all when he spoke. His dark blue eyes were steady, surprisingly calm and they responded normally to Roy's penlight. He had a large and slightly crooked nose, but it was obviously an old injury._

_He gasped when Roy tried to slide the BP cuff around his upper arm. Roy immediately stopped._

_"I am impaled. There are nails under me."_

_Both paramedics carefully surveyed the victim with their flashlights._

_"Can you tell us where?" Johnny winced at the half a foot of rod sticking up from Sid's leg, a dark circle of blood on the jeans around the base. There wasn't nearly as much blood as there could have been, but Johnny couldn't be sure how much was under him. It didn't look like much._

_"My left hand. My right wrist, my arms, my right shoulder, I think, one by my neck. My right hip, though I don't think it went in very far. I will choose to ignore the symbolism of their placement." He licked his lips, his voice more strained. He spoke with a mild, educated English accent._

_Roy didn't say anything to that and Johnny stayed tight-lipped. Sid had landed with his arms spread out from him, now impaled in several places including wrists and hands. Sid also had a trimmed beard and long straight, slightly graying brown hair spread out around his head._

_They couldn't just pull him off the nails because of the risk of causing more damage and he would still be pinned by the rod. They called up for Chet to come down with the bolt cutters and a stokes._

_"We're going to have someone down here right away to get you out of this. Did you hit your head at all?"_

_"No."_

_"How's your back? Did you hurt your back? Can you move your feet?" Johnny kept his eyes on Sid's work boots. Both of them shifted a little bit._

_"I can move them, but it hurts much less if I stay still." The injured man swallowed, eyes upward toward the hole he had fallen through. "In my leg. Surprising how much the rest of your body moves when you move just one little part of it." He swallowed again, breathing a little faster. "I don't feel any pain in my back. I don't think I'm injured there."_

_"Okay." Afraid to cause him more pain, Roy tried to touch him as little as possible as he used the flashlight to help him find all the places with nails under him._

_Sid kept absolutely still, only his eyes turned toward Roy. There were no nails in his upper right arm._

_"Now I'm going to have to take your blood pressure. It's probably going to hurt a bit." Roy could not think of any method that would not hurt. "So, I just want you to relax and keep as still as you can."_

_Sid closed his eyes._

_"Hey, Sid, Sid?" Roy touched his face. _

_"Sid?" Johnny leaned toward him, too._

_Sid's eyes snapped open, his expression surprised._

_"You told me to relax." His eyes flicked from one to the other of them, his head still perfectly still._

_Roy drew back a little. "Well, um, yeah. That's good. But keep your eyes open so we know you're okay."_

_"Aaah." He blinked and licked his lips. "I will relax with my eyes open then."_

_Roy nodded at Johnny, who shrugged. He took a pair of scissors from his belt pouch and cut away the khaki work shirt from the arm and carefully slid the BP cuff around it._

_"Hey!"_

_Johnny turned to see Chet Kelly coming in turnout coat and helmet with the bolt cutters. His eyes widened when he saw the rod sticking up out of Sid's leg, but he did not hesitate. He crouched down next to Johnny and set the stokes down beside them._

_"Where do you need these?" He held up the bolt cutters._

_"Hang on a minute. Cap! Have you got Rampart!" Johnny called upward._

_"Yeah! I got Rampart! But they're jammed! They need you to make it quick!"_

_"We've got a male victim! Approximately forty-five years old!" Roy shouted up the vital signs and description of the injuries. They could just hear Stanley's voice relaying the facts to Rampart._

_"Alright, when you get him free, they want you to start an IV, D5W with five milligrams MS and transport as soon as possible!"_

_"Ten-four! Do we have an ETA for the ambulance?"_

_"Negative!"_

_Roy looked down at his partner, his victim. They could get him out, but they only had temporary help for him, not the medical attention he needed._

_"Okay. Chet go over there." Johnny pointed and Chet moved, half crouching, behind Sid's left arm; there wasn't enough room to stand. "He's got nails under him. Roy and I are going to hold him and you're going to slide the bolt cutters in and cut them off."_

_"Okay." Chet nodded._

_Roy almost rested his hand on Sid's shoulder and then thought better of it. "I'm sorry. We can't give you anything for the pain. We need to get you out of here first."_

_"I can wait." Sid spoke in a loud whisper, still keeping completely still._

_"All right." Johnny took his gloves off and, as carefully as he could, lifted Sid's bloody left hand just enough so Chet could slide the cutters in and pull the handles in just so they rested on either side of the nail. Chet pushed the handles in._

_Clik!_

_Roy saw Sid gasp and blink; his fingers twitched, but otherwise he didn't move. Chet and Johnny moved on to the next one under his forearm._

_Clik!_

_Sid's chest rose and fell. A film of dust drifted down through the light from above._

_Clik! Clik!_

_"You're doing real good, Sid. You're doing real good." Johnny's fingers found the nail under his shoulder and Chet moved the cutters in._

_Clik!_

_"I guess three years in a Tibetan monastery has paid off after all." Sid took a deep breath. He was pale and sweating. Roy lined up the next nail on Sid's arm, just below the elbow and Chet leaned forward with the cutters._

_Rrrrrrr-rrrrrrrruurrruurrrrruurrrrr-rrrrruurrrrrrr!_

_Dust cascaded down from above._

_"Aftershock!" Roy shouted and threw himself over Sid's chest._

_RRRrrrrrrrr-rrruuuuuurrr-rrrrr-rrrruuurrrrRRR-Rrrrrruurrrrrrr!_

_Johnny threw himself over his wounded leg while Chet huddled over Sid's head._

_RRRRRRrrruuUURRRR-RRRrrrrrrruuurRRR-RRRrrr-rrruuurrrrrrRRRRrr! !_

_Timbers cracked and fell to the shuddering ground. Men's voices shouted from above._

_RRFFrrrrrrrr-rrruuuurrr-rrrrr-rrrruurrrr-rrrruurrrrrrr!_

_rrrrrrrruuurrrrrr-rrr-rrrrrrr-rrrrrr-rrrrruurrrr-rrrrrrrrr-rrrrrrrr._

_rrrrrrrrr-rrr-rrr-rrr-rrrrrr-rrrrr-rrrrrr._

_Johnny cautiously peeked up from under the rim of his fire helmet._

_"Roy!"_

_A wooden beam had fallen over his shoulders. Johnny climbed over Sid's legs. Chet was already grabbing the other end. They lifted it and threw it away. It didn't feel too heavy._

_"Roy?"_

_He looked up from under his helmet and sat up on his own._

_"I'm okay. It wasn't bad." He looked like he didn't know what to do with his hands._

_"Come on." Johnny grabbed his turnout coat, forcing Roy to look at him. "Roy, come on. Let me check you out."_

_Panting, Roy sat still for him. Behind him, Chet bent over Sid._

_"Hey, pal, are you okay?"_

_"Yes. Thank-you." Chet kept him talking while Johnny looked for damage._

_"Okay, did it just get you on your shoulders? Did it hit your helmet at all? Any nails?" Johnny couldn't see any obvious damage and Roy didn't have any trouble holding his arms out, but he was sure there was a bruise there._

_"We gotta get out of here." Roy let his arms down, his blue eyes full of worry._

_Johnny agreed. "You're telling me." He got up and moved around Roy._

_"Hey! You guys still down there?" Captain Stanley called from above. Johnny answered._

_"Yeah!" He coughed, blinked in the thin haze of dust still in the air._

_"Well, get out of there! This building isn't looking too good!"_

_"We've almost got him ready to move! We'll need a rope to get him up on the stokes!"_

_Chet already had the bolt cutters ready for the last two nails in Sid's arm._

_Clik! Clik!_

_Chet and Johnny repositioned themselves to get the last nail under Sid's body. Then finally the rod while Roy unwrapped the blanket and spread it out in the stokes._

_Clak!_

_"Okay, one more." Johnny held onto the protruding rod and Chet clipped it off._

_Clak!_

_"Okay." Johnny moved to lift Sid's legs. Roy reached across the stokes under his middle._

_Chet carefully put his arms under his shoulders. He was taller than he looked, head to foot filling the length of the stokes. They wrapped the yellow plastic over him. Roy tightened the straps._

_"We're almost there. You're going to be fine."_

_Sid's eyes, clear and steady, looked back at Roy. "I know."_

_That subtle smile transfixed Roy for a second, a strange shared confidence between rescuer and victim that, yes, they would both be fine. Then Johnny spoke, the moment passing._

_"Roy, get the equipment."_

_Johnny took the head, Chet the feet. Roy led with the trauma and drug boxes. They picked their way over new debris, but none of it blocked their way as they climbed back through the hole in the collapsed wall._

_"Over here!" Marco's head appeared through the opening. The rope was already hanging down for them. They secured it to the stokes and Lopez, Stoker and the Captain pulled him up. Johnny waited for Roy and Chet to climb up first. Roy didn't seem to have any trouble on the ladder._

_Finally they were all up and running out of the building, Johnny and Chet carrying the medical boxes. With his boss, Hartman, standing by and promising to visit him in the hospital, they treated Sid on the sidewalk, covered his wounds, started the IV. Sid started looking better almost immediately. In fact, he smiled, his face dirty, dust lightened his hair and beard. Johnny knelt by him._

_"Are you okay?"_

_"A smoggy Los Angeles sky looks very good right now. Don't you think?"_

_"Yeah." Johnny squinted up at the cloudless blue sky, the sun. "It sure does."_

_"Have we got an ETA on the ambulance, Cap?" Roy squinted up at Stanley who shook his head._

_"There aren't any ambulances available. We're going to have to take him in on the engine."_

_Johnny stood. "Cap?"_

_"We're going to drop you off with him. You're going to be on standby at Rampart until further notice. Resupply the squad when we get there, then we're going to take it back to the station with us and meed B-shift there."_

_Roy finished taping a last Kurlex pad over Sid's wrist. "How bad is it?"_

_"There are some collapsed buildings. Six dead so far. Otherwise. . . . well, it could have been a lot worse. Got him ready to go?'_

_They nodded. They all helped lift the stokes up onto the bed of hoses on the engine. Roy and Johnny rode there with Sid. Lopez took the squad in._

_With the sirens blaring, sitting high on the back of the engine, they looked at the passing streets as they rode in. There weren't many cars out, but some. No people. Traffic lights were out in places. But the buildings and most things looked terribly ordinary. Whatever might have collapsed was somewhere else._

_The engine turned onto the familiar street to Rampart General Hospital, the tall building rising higher as they approached. But when Mike got the big fire engine to the underpass of the building that led to the emergency entrance a sheriff's deputy waved them to the side. He met them as they unloaded Sid; Johnny climbed down carefully, holding the IV bag up._

_"You've got to carry him over there." The deputy pointed to the underpass. "They're taking them in the parking lot."_

_"All right, everyone move it." Following their captain's instructions, they jogged through the underpass, Gage, Stoker, Kelly and Lopez carrying the stokes, Stanley and DeSoto following. People in white uniforms grouped around the injured along the perimeter of the parking lot. Two of them ran up to them. Dr. Morton and a nurse._

_"All right, what you have you got?"_

_Johnny gave him a quick run-down. He certainly thought that Sid deserved to go to the head of the triage line, but that depended on what other injuries had come in already. It was Morton's call. And the no-nonsense doctor could be an unforgiving judge. The watchful nurse wrote notes in a chart behind him._

_Silently watching, Sid actually looked a little bemused as Morton shined his pen light into his eyes, pulled out the blanket, looked at the impaled leg._

_"All right, get him inside. He's going to have to go to surgery." He scrawled his signature on the chart and dumped it on Sid's middle._

_Johnny heard the inevitable complaints called out by someone as they went in. "Hey, I was here first! Why's he going in . . . ?"_

_Dixie McCall directed traffic at the intersection of hallways just inside the entrance. Even at it's worst, they had never seen Rampart so busy. Gurneys and patients in the hallway, all the chairs in the waiting area full, people standing at the desk. Nurses, orderlies, doctors, an army in white in the halls, tackling the crisis one patient at a time. Johnny looked for an empty gurney so the could send Chet and Marco back to the engine, but there were none. Roy hurried down the hall with the drug and trauma boxes to restock them._

_Snatching the chart Stanley handed her, Dixie frowned over it._

_"All right, Kel can take him; he should be almost done with what he's got now. He's going to need x-rays first. We've got it set up in Two." She wrote down instructions on the chart. "Tell Harry, you can go ahead of a couple broken arms. Can you stay with him?"_

_Johnny opened his mouth, but Captain Stanley answered first. "Gage and DeSoto are assigned to Rampart for now. The other shift is taking the squad."_

_"Good." She pointed at Johnny. "You guys are working for me now. Get him into Two." She handed the chart back. "And get him to fill out the personal information on this while you're at it."_

_After Johnny pointed where it was, Captain Stanley led the way through the crowded hall. As soon as an orderly pushed out a wheelchair and a woman with a splinted leg they went in. They unloaded Sid from the stokes onto the exam table while Harry, the x-ray technician, read Dixie's instructions on the chart._

_"They're gonna take good care you, Sid. It's been a real honor meeting you, pal." Chet looked like he wanted to shake Sid's hand, but that was impossible. Sid gave him a smile._

_"I am honored to have been rescued by you, all of you."_

_"Just doing our job." Captain Stanley herded his men out._

_A nurse's aide came in to pick up the plates from the last patient and Harry handed Johnny the chart back and started writing something down for her to take to the lab. Johnny looked down at the patient form on the metal clipboard in his hand._

_He reached inside his turnout coat for the pen from his shirt pocket and remembered that he just had his t-shirt on. He looked around, but the only pen he saw was the one Harry was using._

_Sid cleared his throat. "Aaah, my right front pocket."_

_"Hmm?" Oh." Johnny unbuttoned the pocket. His fingers found two pens inside; he took one, a plain black Bic. "Thanks." He looked at the first line. "Uh, Sid, is it Sidney?"_

_"No." He sighed. "It's actually Sedgwick. Sedgwick Ingrahm Dalrymple. It is a family name. But I prefer 'Sid'._

_Johnny had to ask him how to spell it._

**

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- - - End Part 1**


	2. Chapter 2

**JOHN GAGE'S GREATEST HITS**

by ardavenport

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- - - Part 2**

Doctor Brackett seemed to be looking for something on his desk. As quietly as possible.

John closed his eyes. He didn't have anything to say. And he and Roy had not been quite sure if Dixie McCall had actually asked Doctor Brackett if they could sleep in his office before she had the cots set up there. It was better than the staff room or the cafeteria where other people were sleeping. After the earthquake, everyone was on twenty-four hours shifts until further notice.

They had debated whether one of them should take the perfectly good couch, but opted for the cots. Brackett would probably want the couch for himself.

John heard drawers opening. Things being moved around. More papers rifling.

He lay still under the blanket, waiting for him to find whatever he was looking for and go. He didn't have any problem with Brackett. He was a great doctor. He had taken great care of Sid, their first victim after the earthquake. And he'd treated patients with all kinds of injuries from minor to critical almost non-stop throughout the day and evening while Johnny and Roy had mostly done back-up work in the triage line. Brackett would understand the necessity that they sleep somewhere. But it was still a little embarrassing he and Roy were crashing in his office.

And he didn't want to wake Roy.

The only halfway comfortable position was on his back. Roy had been positive that these cots were army surplus, like in fire camps. John thought that they were a little better than that. And they had real pillows. Rampart at least had plenty of those. But John happily preferred a cot and a pillow to being a patient in a hospital bed. With a cot you had the choice of getting up and walking away. A hospital bed was something you were stuck in. Like the last time he had ended up staying in Rampart . . . .

**

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He was the last man in the building._

_After sweeping the top floor for any people to evacuate, he was on his way down when the gas blew._

_He had been too close to explosions before. But this time he was inside it._

_The gas had gone off in a succession of booms that slammed him into walls and down a flight of stairs. He felt the sharp pain in his leg on the way down. Stunned, at the bottom of the stairs, he had hoped that it wasn't broken._

_Acrid smoke quickly overwhelmed the odor of gas. Flames spread over the upper landing and he saw flickering yellow through the doors thrown open when he and Roy were airing the place out and looking for stragglers. But when he rolled over and tried to rise, the pain in his left leg dropped him back to the floor._

_Yes, it was broken._

_Coughing, he dragged himself with his arms and good leg down the hall but only managed to crawl a few feet before his rescuers, in oxygen tanks and air masks, found him._

_They didn't give him time to even try to get one foot under him. They just hauled him up and carried him through the smoke down the hall to the front door. Then out into the sunlight, down the front steps and across the street. Pain shot up his leg every time it bumped against anything. He felt dizzy and sick from it, his vision fading in and out of darkness, by the time they stopped._

_After setting him down on a plastic blanket rolled out on the pavement, Johnny initially did all the things that he did not want a victim to do. He moved. He touched the blood on his face. He tried to check himself out. In agony from his leg – the pain stabbed him every time he coughed – he could hardly hear anything other than the aftermath of the explosions. Roy had to shout to get his attention. Lying back, he finally lay still so Roy could examine him. He shined a penlight his eyes and covered up the cuts on his face before putting the oxygen mask on him and checking his vital signs._

_Captain Stanley helped Roy take his boots and socks off and put the traction splint on his leg before leaving to rejoin the rest of the engine crew. It hurt less after that but only because it was immobilized from any movement. He found out later that it was Chet and Marco who had gone in and carried him out, but they had gone right back to the hoses after dropping him off. A huge header of smoke rose up in the blue sky above the burning apartment building. More sirens arrived. Johnny couldn't see much. They were on the sidewalk behind the squad, but he saw Truck 127 roll in. The whole building was involved. He heard firemen shouting._

_" - - onny!" Roy leaned over him. "Did you hit you head at all?" Running his fingers through Johnny's thick hair, Roy turned his head to either side, his hands patting his skull, looking for hematoma._

_"No!" His voice was muffled and flat under the oxygen mask, but Roy saw him shake his head. He spoke into the biophone receiver._

_"Negative Rampart."_

_Johnny had kept his helmet on during the fall. At the expense of the cuts on his face. Roy took out an IV bag and tubing, swabbed his arm down and pumped up the BP cuff. He turned his head to watch. A quick jab, the needle was in and Roy taped it down. D5W with 5 milligrams MS IV._

_The lingering smell of gas and smoke had been dissipated by the oxygen, but Johnny tasted them again when he coughed._

_"Are you okay?" Roy leaned closer._

_He nodded and reached for the oxygen mask, but Roy pulled it away for him. "Did ya get everyone out?"_

_"Yeah, we got everyone out. We had to get a stretcher for a lady with a bad hip. But the neighbors are taking care of her and the Cap called a second squad. The building was clear when it blew. Well," he half-smiled, "except for you."_

_Johnny half-smiled, too. Last man out. It was part of the job._

_"Here now, put this back on." Roy replaced the oxygen mask, stretching the strap back behind his head again and laying a hand on his forehead. "Just lay back and relax."_

_He did what he was told; the oxygen smelled a lot better than smoke and gas. By the time the ambulance arrived he was feeling the morphine and a lot less of his broken leg. He could wiggle his toes without much pain though Roy told him not to. They lifted him, traction splint, resuscitator and all, onto the stretcher and loaded him into the ambulance with Roy going with him. His partner checked his vital signs while in transit and reported them to Rampart._

_"I guess it looks like you're going to miss the party."_

_"Hunh?"_

_"Dixie's party? You know, her birthday?"_

_He had forgotten. The paramedics had been planning it for weeks. He had tapes and a player in the squad. Along with the present that Roy had gotten for the group. A hair dryer. He lifted his head, but Roy stopped him from trying to take the oxygen mask off and pushed him back down._

_"Hey, just lie still. It's going to be up in Orthopedics. Maybe when they're done with you they'll let you come down the hall to join us."_

_That might have worked. Dixie had broken her ankle a few days ago and was actually in Rampart as a patient. And after they were done with the x-rays downstairs, they would send him up to Orthopedics, too._

_Johnny had worked it out in his head by the time they arrived at Rampart and Roy and the attendant lifted him up out the back of the ambulance. How long it would take for Brackett to check him out, the x-rays, then having his leg set. There was plenty of time to still make the party._

_Johnny tried to ask Brackett right away in the treatment room, but Roy stopped him from taking off the oxygen mask again. His partner asked about the party for him. Dr. Brackett had seemed sympathetic to the idea. Well, he did not actually say 'no'. But when they took him upstairs, Dr. Buchard gave him a firm 'no.' _

_The orthopedist was dismayed by the amount of bruising he saw and did not seem to think that getting out of a burning building was a good enough reason for the rough treatment his leg had gotten. And Roy wasn't there to back him up. Johnny made the mistake of persisting with his idea of going to Dixie's party while they were putting the cast on. Later, he was sure that contributed to Buchard's decision to have him sedated and tying his leg up in traction, just to keep him from trying._

_By the time he was awake and alert again the party was over. Roy said later that he did stop by his room during the party, but he was asleep._

_They did save him a piece of cake at least, and he got a thank-you from Dixie._

**

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- - - End Part 2**


	3. Chapter 3

**JOHN GAGE'S GREATEST HITS**

by ardavenport

**

* * *

- - - Part 3**

Brackett had stopped searching. A paper rustled. A page turned.

Long pause.

Another page turned.

Now he seemed to be reading by the desk lamp. Even with his eyes closed, John could tell it was on. Brackett was obviously trying to be quiet, but the little noises couldn't help being loud with no other sounds to compete with in the isolated office. Even the hustle in the waiting area outside had died down a bit. It had been getting late when he an Roy had quit; it could be past midnight by now.

'It could have been worse.' That was what everyone was saying about the earthquake. It hadn't been The Big One, in which most of the rest of the country expected southern California to sink into the Pacific. But it had been enough to keep Rampart, and all the other local hospitals, busy. Maybe they would end up calling it the It-Could-Have-Been-Worse Earthquake.

At the desk, another page turned.

Having never tried to sleep in Brackett's office before, John never realized how much it felt like a cave, with only a few small windows high up on one wall. The Station Fifty-One dormitory had windows along one whole wall. He liked to sleep with the window open in his apartment on warm nights. But he doubted that those little token windows above the desk could even be opened. And if they could, they probably wouldn't let in enough fresh air to get rid of the antiseptic hospital smell.

That scent got everywhere in Rampart. It wasn't nearly as bad in Brackett's office as it was in the treatment rooms down the hall. Or in the isolation rooms upstairs. . . .

. . . . There weren't any windows in those rooms at all . . . .

**

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_

* * *

In all his life, Johnny Gage had never been so sick. He knew he had been exposed to a victim with an unknown and virulent virus, but he had cavalierly thought that he would feel it coming on and have time to get to Rampart on his own. If he got it._

_But his only warning was feeling tired just before being called out on a run, and some dizziness when he was up on the roof. He passed out while trying to examine a heart attack victim trapped on a scaffolding. Roy had to come down and the other pulled him and the victim up to the roof. The man with the heart attack didn't make it. John almost didn't make it._

_He was a little delirious in the ambulance. While Roy continued CPR on a man who was already dead, the ambulance attendant held the paper bag for him while he brought up his lunch. And when they arrived at Rampart they took him up to isolation right away. That was the last time he saw anyone's face for days. Just blue masks and eyes._

_And in their eyes, he could see they didn't know how to treat him. The fever burned through the drugs they gave him that only dulled the ache in his joints, his chest, the throbbing pain in his head. He couldn't even keep water down. Everything was given to him by IV. The cool damp clothes the nurses lay on his forehead gave only a few seconds of relief. The fire raged inside him and nothing they threw at it was putting it out._

_Even sick and feverish, he hadn't been afraid. Until. . . ._

_. . . . he heard Roy's voice saying that Tim Duntley had died. He had been one of the firemen who had responded on the first victim of the virus._

_After that, he thought about what he needed to do to keep breathing. As long as he was still alive, they had a chance of beating it. He could accept being killed in an accident, a fire, an explosion. He was ready for that. But not this. Duntley, another fireman, never should have died from this, a slow death from a fire within._

_The worst times were at night, when he was alone in the windowless, tiled isolation ward. He could only fall into a fitful fevered sleep for a few hours at a time, sometimes woken up by a night nurse taking his vital signs, changing the damp cloth on his forehead. He didn't want any drugs to help him sleep; he was too afraid of not waking up. The nurses only encouraged him to rest, but Dr. Early seemed to understand how he felt._

_They did finally find a way to fight back the fire. They located someone with antibodies to the virus; someone who had only had a mild case of it and recovered. And his immunity could be extracted and injected into others. He knew it was working when he heard a nurse tell Doctor Early that his temperature was down to a hundred and three. And he saw it in Roy's blue eyes; the humor was back, replacing some of the helpless worry that Roy could never manage to disguise for a victim he could not help._

_The treatment worked, but it hardly felt like a cure. He was exhausted from the fight, his muscles aching and weak. And the dull headache behind his eyes lessened but only slowly, like the fever. All his energy had been used up just trying to survive and he was too tired to care that he was getting better. Too tired even to care about all the indignities that he hated most about hospitals. Bed pans and sponge baths and hospital gowns open in the back didn't matter to him at all. When a nurse with graying hair spooned broth into his mouth because he was too weak to do it himself, he meekly accepted it because he just did not have enough energy left for indignation._

_They let him out of isolation when his temperature dropped below a hundred and one. But he didn't remember that. He just woke up in a hospital room, feeling completely exhausted but much less sick, and with Dr. Brackett, the other surviving victim of the virus, in the second bed. By then he could eat on his own, but Brackett was up and walking around a full day before he was. That didn't seem right to Johnny. Brackett was at least fifteen years older than he was._

_And along with a hospital room with a window, he also got to see people's faces again. Doctor Early, Roy, his aunt, other people he knew at the hospital, the guys from the station when they came to visit. And nurses, too. The pretty ones, including a few he'd been trying to get dates with for months. They seemed to find him more interesting after he had almost died from a mysterious disease that no one had ever heard of. Doctor Brackett only grudgingly acknowledged them and sat in bed reading medical journals most of the time. That was fine with Johnny; he didn't want any competition anyway. The extra attention almost made up for being so sick._

_Almost._

**

* * *

- - - End Part 3**


	4. Chapter 4

**JOHN GAGE'S GREATEST HITS**

by ardavenport

**

* * *

- - - Part 4**

Papers riffled again.

Brackett's chair faintly creaked as he stood and collected more pages. Footsteps on the carpet. Light briefly came in from outside as the door opened. It went out as the door closed. The room was dark again.

Relieved, John sighed, feeling less like an intruder squatting in the doctor's office now that Brackett was gone. He really didn't have a problem with Brackett. He was an okay guy. Someone he could respect and work under for over twelve hours in an overcrowded emergency department after an earthquake. But not anyone he would hang out with.

Brackett was a doctor first. The kind of doctor that most victims wanted to be looking up at when they were sick or injured because he would fix what was wrong.

John Gage had looked up at Brackett that way once or twice himself . . . .

**

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_

* * *

"Johnny?" It was Brackett's voice._

_"Uuuunnnnnnnhhhhhh."_

_"Johnny?"_

_He lay on a minimally padded table. There was a bright light above, shining on his closed eyelids. There was pressure wrapped around his upper arm and a hiss._

_"Hey, Gage!"_

_"Hunh!"_

_Chet's voice wasn't loud, but it was right next to his left ear and it jolted him, his eyes snapping open. Then he squinted and blinked._

_"Ya just gotta know how to handle him, Doc."_

_"Uh, yeah."_

_Johnny saw blurry features, still recognizable as Brackett. Chet and his enormous mustache leaned even closer._

_"Sssssssuuu-uuuhhhh, ssshet."_

_Brackett touched his shoulder, then his forehead. The doctor's pen light clicked on over one eye, then the other, leaving him blinking from the afterglow and the still too bright examination lights over him._

_"Well, welcome back. How do you feel, Johnny?"_

_Brackett came into better focus, but the room seemed to tilt from side to side. A headache-y congestion pressed behind his eyes and a nausea tightened in his throat and stomach._

_"Uuum, kin'a sick, Doc. A lil' dizzy. Ummm." The words came a little easier this time through his numbed lips. He turned his head, "uuuh, ma le' 'urts." A burning, stabbing pain on his right leg, where the rattlesnake had bitten him. "S'not too baa'."_

_Going to look at it, Brackett touched the leg, turning it slightly to look. "There's a little swelling." He came back, leaned on the examination table and displaced Chet. "You're responding pretty well to the anti-venom but you're still going to feel a little rocky for a few hours. I'll get you something for it."_

_He moved away. Looking down the length of his body, Johnny saw him talking to the nurse. It looked further away than it should have. He was still fully clothed, boots, pants, blue uniform shirt, badge, paramedic name tag, pin. He should have been standing, not horizontal on the exam table. Chet came back._

_Johnny didn't remember when he passed out, but he was sure they were still on the dirt road coming down from the hills. And Chet had been with him, riding on the back of the engine, applying suction to his leg and holding the IV bag that was now hanging from a stand next to the exam table._

_Chet Kelly was an annoying jerk, but he was still a good guy._

_Johnny managed a half grin. "You gonna gif up tha' fire service, an' get a job here as uh nurse, Chet?"_

_Chet shook his head with a nervous grin. "No way, man. No way I could do what you do."_

_Returning with a hypodermic, Brackett held it up, flicking his finger on it before lowering it and injecting the drug into the IV line in his arm. Chet watched the needle warily. Johnny saw movement behind him, the door opening. Taking the needle out, Brackett glanced behind him before patting him on the stomach._

_"You'll feel better in a few minutes, Johnny."_

_"Thans, Thoc." The words slurred over his tongue._

_Roy came around to stand next to Chet. "Hey, Johnny."_

_Johnny quirked a smile up at him. "Hey. Ya miss' all tha' a'tion."_

_"Yeah, sorry I wasn't there for you." Roy looked a little guilty and Johnny couldn't think of why. He had been taking three victims into Rampart by helicopter when he got bitten by the snake collecting the equipment he'd left behind at the car accident site. He looked at Chet. "Cap wants to see you. They're going back to the station."_

_Chet nodded. His hand squeezed his shoulder. "Hey, see you tomorrow, pal. They'll take good care of you."_

_"Yeah." He watched him leave. Chet was a good guy. "Hey."_

_Roy stepped up to where Chet had just stood._

_"What happen' to tha' kis'n tha' car? They mae' it okay?" The three teenagers they had rescued would be at Rampart. It seemed weird to Johnny that he was going to be there, too. That really wasn't how things were supposed to go._

_"Yeah, they're all stable. A couple of them might be here for awhile. The girl with the broken hip had a spinal fracture, but they're not sure how bad it is. I saw some of their parents in the waiting area."_

_"Hmmm." He nodded. It was pretty dumb for them to have gotten so banged up running their car off the road while they were joyriding . . . . almost as dumb as getting bit by a rattlesnake looking for something. But there had been no hint of it while they were treating the victims and taking them back up the hill. It must have crawled into the shade under the car while they were taking them to the helicopter._

_Brackett came back, resting his hand on his shoulder opposite Roy._

_"You're doing a lot better,_ b_ut I'm going to send you up to ICU for a few hours for observation, just in case."_

_"'kay." He nodded. The nausea and pain in his leg had lessened and the dizziness wasn't too bad, if he didn't move his head too much._

_"Karen, get him ready to go upstairs." One last pat on the shoulder and Brackett left. Which was the cue for Roy to go, too. Because 'getting ready to go upstairs' meant that his clothes would be taken off and a thin white hospital gown put on. Roy promised to visit later if he could; tomorrow morning if he couldn't. Chuck was coming in to fill in for the rest of his shift. _

_"Hey. See ya d'morrow." Johnny reached across with his free arm for a quick handgrip with his partner. Roy's smile warmed up a bit. There hadn't been anything he could do about the snakebite since he had already transported to Rampart with the victims. And Roy hated not having something he could do. Johnny had to do his own IV and the engine crew had to bring him into Rampart._

_As soon as Roy was out the door, Karen flung a white sheet over his middle. He stared upward while off came his shoes and socks. She efficiently unbuckled and unzipped him and under cover of the sheet quickly tugged off pants and undershorts as one. Johnny always wondered if the husbands of the married, older nurses like Karen really knew what their wives did. But on the job, people just became bodies that needed to be fixed, just as her touch was as impersonal as medical instruments and not a woman's hands at all._

_His free hand clumsy and weak, he still tried to unbutton his shirt, but she swatted it away. "You know better."_

_She undid the buttons and cut the shirt up the left side so she could take it off without disturbing the IV. It all went into a bag. She tugged the hospital gown on his right on, draping it over the rest of him just as the orderlies arrived. Johnny knew both their names, Frank and Mike, but they didn't make eye contact as they and Karen lifted him onto the gurney. Karen's hands on his bare buttocks and thigh under the sheet meant nothing. You just couldn't get personal in this job for some things._

_They wheeled him out the room, down the hall to the elevator. Then upstairs. Down the hall again where the orderlies delivered him to an ICU room. The motion didn't bother him much. Brackett's drug had worked though it covered up the nausea and dizziness more than cured it. And closing his eyes helped._

_"Hi, Johnny."_

_Blinking his eyes open, he saw a pretty face, blond hair crowned with a white nurse's cap. He'd seen her before, but she worked upstairs and had a wedding ring on her finger, so he didn't know her name._

_"Hi." He managed a half smile. Arm supporting the metal chart that had come up with him, her eyes scanned down what was written there. Her lips pursed. "Oooh, how did that happen?"_

_"Mmmmm." He did not really want to tell her the whole story about the snake under the car on the hill and then coming in on the engine. But she apparently didn't expect him to answer. She tsk'ed to the chart, checked his vital signs, the IV and covered the sheet over him with a blanket brought over by a student nurse._

_After that, he just lay there with his eyes closed. From behind a nearby white curtain a heart monitor softly beep-beep-beep-ed. On the other side of him a respirator inhaled and exhaled noisily. He had no energy to do anything, not even sleep. So he dozed through the activity around him, stirring only when they came after him at regular intervals for vital signs and - - -_

_"Johnny?"_

_Blinking, he saw Brackett leaning over him._

_"How're you feeling?"_

_He lifted his head_

_"Um, better." The room stayed solidly in one place with no drift at all. He dropped his head to the pillow again. He could almost imagine that he wasn't any worse off than he might be after working on an all-night fire and getting only two hours sleep. Except for the IV. And the burning pain in his right calf. Brackett noticed him looking. He walked around, pulled up the sheet and blanket and uncovered the bite. He peered down his side to look, but all he could see over the folds of blanket was the blotchy edges of what had to be an enormous black bruise. Brackett's cool fingers probed the skin._

_"The swelling's gone down a bit. How's it feel?"_

_"Mmmm, still hurts. But it's not bad." At least, he didn't think it would keep him awake at night._

_"Hmmmm," Brackett glowered at him doubtfully, "Well, just make sure you let us know if it feels like it's getting worse."_

_Johnny agreed and after a check of his vital signs (his blood pressure was low but acceptable) Dr. Brackett approved discontinuing the IV and releasing him from the ICU. After scrawling more instructions on the chart, Brackett did give him a confident smile as they wheeled him out._

_He got a private room. Johnny really didn't know how Workman's Comp covered that, but that wasn't his problem to worry about. He just had to fill out the forms. There would be lots of them; Workman's Comp, an incident report to go with Captain Stanley's, the voucher for his uniform. Headquarters never seemed to be short of forms to fill out. He hoped he would be well enough to go to work for his next shift. If not, he would have to fill out another form._

_The door opened. Suddenly his immediate prospects looked a bit brighter._

_Her nametag said 'Staci Nelson'. Early twenties, brown hair, coiled under her nurse's cap, brown eyes. A little short, but with a nice figure. And a nice smile as she asked if he was up to eating dinner. He slouched down, pulling the covers up and said he wasn't sure if he was feeling well enough for much, but maybe if she stayed a bit - - _

_The door opened again._

_"Hi, Johnny." Dixie McCall joined them._

_"Oh, hi, Dix." _

_"Kel said you were looking a little better and let you out of the ICU."_

_Staci answered first. "He said he was feeling a little weak and might need some help with dinner."_

_"Uuuh huuuh." Dixie nodded thoughtfully to her fellow nurse. "Sorry to hear that. Maybe I can help. Would you like me to get a bedpan for him?"_

_Johnny pushed himself upright._

_"Oh, I'm not feeling that bad." He nervously grinned. "I can do that by myself." He gave Dixie a pleading grimace when Staci turned toward her. But Dixie's quirked a sly grin back to him. Then Staci looked at him suspiciously._

_Johnny slouched back in the bed, not feeling so well after all._

**

* * *

- - - End Part 4**


	5. Chapter 5

**JOHN GAGE'S GREATEST HITS**

by ardavenport

**

* * *

- - - Part 5**

Brrrrrriiiiiiiiii--nnnnnnnnnnnnnngggggggg.

Johnny instantly awoke.

The office was still dark, but there was daylight coming in through the small windows behind the desk.

"Mmmmm, could one of you two get that?"

Startled by the sound of Doctor Brackett's voice, Johnny looked to his right. Roy climbed up off his cot, the blanket coming off with him, and reached the phone on the desk.

"Uh, Rampart General Hospital, Fireman DeSoto speaking." He listened. Lowered the receiver. "It's Mr. O'Brien."

The white lab sliding off him, Brackett struggled up from the couch. He was fully dressed, his tie loosened, his shirt wrinkled. Johnny threw his blanket aside and got up from his cot.

"Thanks, Roy." Taking the receiver, Brackett started talking on the phone, effectively dismissing them even before they left the office.

Yawning, Johnny looked at his watch. Almost seven AM.

The waiting area outside was half full. The emergency department looked busy for early morning, but nowhere near as chaotic as the day before. In one chair sat a familiar face.

"Chet?" Johnny looked down at their fellow firefighter now wearing civilian clothes, jeans, plaid shirt and a two-day growth of beard. "What are you doing here?"

He got up. "Oh, I'm waiting for Captain Stanley."

"What?" Immediately concerned, Roy looked down the hall, but didn't see anything. "What happened?"

Looking unconcerned, Chet shrugged. "Oh, nothing serious."

Johnny scowled. "Well, what's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, we've been working on searching some collapsed buildings for survivors most of the night, but we pretty much got most places cleared a few hours ago when the battalion chief notices that we've been on duty the longest. So, he tells us to go home. And show up at the station tomorrow morning, just in case they need another double shift. You guys, too.

"Anyway, we get back to the station, get changed and then the Cap notices that the kitchen is still trashed, so we decide to clean up a little bit."

Johnny put a hand on his hip. "What? B or C shift couldn't finish it up?"

"Hey, everybody's working, pal. We've got six collapsed buildings, and one of them's an apartment building, some broken gas and water lines and a few fires on top of that. And there's a big crack, right across Dexter Avenue.

"So, anyway, we're cleaning up. We lost about half of the dishes, by the way - -

Roy guessed. "Cap cut himself on some of the broken glass."

"Actually, it was a broken plate." Chet held up his left hand and pointed at the lower palm. "Cut a big gash when he was tossing it in trash. We wrapped it up and I brought him in. Thought I'd pick you guys up anyway while I'm here. They going to let you go?"

John looked at Roy who shrugged. "Yeah. It really thinned out late last night. And the other hospitals are picking up the overflow."

"Yeah, but after we go to the men's room." John gave his partner a 'come on' gesture and they left Chet waiting for Captain Stanley.

A couple of orderlies and a maintenance man who looked like they'd been up all night left as they went in, but otherwise there was no one else there while they did their business.

"I can't wait to get home and get a shower." Roy washed his hands while John splashed water on his face.

Johnny looked up in the mirror and touched the patchy stubble on his cheek. "You could shower at the station."

"You can shower at the station. I need to get home, see Joanne and the kids."

Neither one of them had change for the pay phone in the waiting room, but the reception nurse let Roy use the hospital phone to call his family a couple of times. They were fine, the house was undamaged and Joanne understood Roy's obligations. But he still wanted to get back to his family.

"Hey," Johnny grabbed Roy's arm, "let me see your back." Roy hesitated. "Come on. Turn around."

Roy complied and Johnny pulled his white t-shirt up under the suspenders. There hadn't been time the day before to look at whatever damage might have been done by the beam that fell on him on their first run after the quake.

"Well, I guess it could be worse. Does it hurt?"

"It's a little sore. Not bad." Roy craned his neck to see the bruising across his back in the mirror. He pulled the t-shirt down. Finishing, they went back to the waiting area. Chet was still there and they took the chairs on either side of him.

"So, where were you two sleeping?"

John rubbed the back of his neck. "Dixie had a couple cots set up for us in Dr. Brackett's office."

"You were sleeping in Brackett's office?" Chet sounded impressed.

"Yeah. So was he." Roy rubbed his eyes. "I didn't hear him come in."

"I saw him come in." John yawned. "But he left. I guess he came back. I'm glad neither one of us took the couch."

"Well, at least you guys got some sleep. We've been digging through rubble looking for survivors since yesterday."

Roy turned to him, his blue eyes suddenly serious. "How bad was it?"

"We didn't find anybody, but there're eight people dead that they've found. Most of'em were killed when their apartment building collapsed, plus some guy had a heart attack. And there're a lot of injuries."

John had seen plenty of those in Rampart's parking lot. "Yeah, tell us about it."

"Hey!"

They all looked up. Captain Stanley, in jeans and jacket, his left hand bulging with white bandages, stood over them. They got up, four unshaven men in the waiting area with the other people in the plastic chairs looking their way. There were more hospital people in white uniforms in the hallway.

"They fix you up, Cap?" Johnny leaned to the side to view the damage. Stanley held it up.

"Yeah. Nine stitches. All night digging through rubble and I cut myself in the kitchen." He scowled, disgusted. "You guys ready to go?"

"Uh, I better go tell someone before we go." Roy hurried off in the direction of Brackett's office.

Chet put his hands in his pockets. "So, um, maybe we should just get breakfast here. I mean, while we're here."

"What?" Johnny crinkled his nose at the shorter man, not liking the sound or smell of that suggestion.

"Yeah, I mean, we could just hang around until visiting hours open."

"What? Chet, visiting hours don't start until ten. I don't want to hang around here for three hours. I've been here for a whole day already."

"Oh, I get it." Stanley nodded down at Kelly. "You want to visit that guy we rescued yesterday."

"Huh?"

Stanley explained to Johnny. "That guy we pulled out from that hole in the floor. On the first rescue after the earthquake."

"Sid?"

"Well, what's wrong with that?" Chet's tone rose defensively. "I mean the guy's hurt, in the hospital. It would probably cheer him up to see some familiar faces."

Tired and disgusted Johnny sneered. "And how would seeing you cheer anyone up?"

On the edge of the waiting area, Dr. Brackett waved Roy off before going to the admissions desk. Roy rejoined their group.

"You've been talking our ears off about that guy all day." Stanley shook his head.

"Who?"

"Sid."

"Who?"

Stanley tilted his head toward Roy. "The guy from the first rescue yesterday that we had to take in on the engine."

"What? What about him?" Roy remembered Sid, but Sid was fine and he had been a few dozen victims ago after a day in the triage line in the Rampart parking lot.

Appalled, Chet looked from one paramedic to the other. "Oh come on guys. He had to be the best victim you ever had! Cap, that guy was keeping Roy calm."

Stanley wearily sighed as if he'd heard this before, multiple times, while Chet kept going.

"I was right there, looking at him, cutting off the nails that were sticking in his back." Chet raised his hands, his eyes glowing with wonder. "And he was looking right back at me. And he was as calm as a holy man." He dropped his hands. "I swear, I've never seen anything like it."

"Ooooh, Chet. . . ." Johnny's shoulders slumped.

"Oh, come on! It's what I've been trying to tell you guys for years. It's the mind-body connection. It's the most powerful force in the universe. And Sid has it. Guy's been all over the world. He's learned all kinds of mystical things that we couldn't even imagine." He looked from Roy to the captain, to Johnny. "Don't tell me you weren't impressed."

"I'm impressed." Johnny's voice rose. "I'm impressed. He was amazing. You're right; he's probably the best victim we ever had. He hardly flinched when you cut those nails off of him. Whatever he was doing, I'm real impressed. When Sid does it. But when you try to do it, Chet, it looks like a - - like a circus act!"

"Okay!" Stanley actually moved between Chet and John. "I think we can all agree that this guy, Sid, was amazing yesterday. Now, can we all get back to the station now?"

Deflated, Chet put his hands in his pockets. "Well, you guys can go back. I wanna wait here and see Sid."

"Chet, it's your car!"

Chet shrank from his superior. "Oh. Right." He shuffled toward the exit and they all gratefully went with him. "But I'm coming back to see him later."

Roy patted the shorter man on the shoulder. "That's very nice of you. I'm sure he'll appreciate seeing a familiar face."

"Thanks, Roy. At least you've got a little more heart than your partner." Chet opened the door out of the visiting area to the public exit. Johnny had to admit that Sid might not mind getting a visitor, even Chet. He'd said he hadn't been in LA for long and only had his boss's name for a local contact. The only phone number he'd had for the hospital form for next of kin had been in New York. And Johnny knew how hard it could be, stuck in the hospital with most of your family out of state.

They walked out to Rampart's vast parking lot and finally to Chet's beat up VW bus. John had never seen Chet drive anything that was less than ten years old. Stanley got in front. Roy and John in back.

Looking toward the tall hospital building, Johnny remembered the last time he'd ridden in Chet's car, when he was released from Rampart after being stuck there as a patient. Chet had come to give him a ride home.

With a whiff of exhaust, the noisy VW engine started up.

"Y'know Roy, I think I might visit Sid later on myself." Johnny leaned close so his partner could hear him better.

Roy raised his voice to talk into Johnny's ear. "Let me know when; I'll join you. It can't be fun for him to be stuck in Rampart. He's probably going to be there for a few days at least."

"Yeah." John sighed. "I know how that feels."

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%_%_%_%_% END %_%_%_%**

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Disclaimer:** All characters belong to Mark VII Productions, Inc., Universal Studios and whoever else owns the 1970's TV show Emergency!; I am just playing in their sandbox.


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